TV Review: Sleepy Hollow 4×04 “The People v. Ichabod Crane”

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This week’s episode of Sleepy Hollow “The People v. Ichabod Crane” was all about hope, despite it being one of the darkest episodes of the season so far.

The episode starts with Jenny going to Crane’s apartment to find his closet filled with spider silk, they believe that something may have took Crane when they opened J Street. When the team figure out that Crane may be in a location called the Cave of Despair, home to the Slayer of Hope which feeds on its victim’s misery until they kill themselves, they race against the clock to save Crane from himself.

For Crane, his misery is in a court house being tried for crimes of cowardliness, failure of being a witness, and murder. Which murder? Abbie Mills. The phenomenal John Noble is back reprising his role as Henry Parish, the son Crane snuffed out of his life, to prove that he is guilty of this crime. Instead of giving up, Crane decides to play the game by accepting the fact that everyone around him dies because that is what happens when a solider goes to war. It’s not enough for Henry though, who accuses him of being a neglectful father even though Crane had no idea that his son even existed at the time. Even then, Crane is able to reach out to the little boy inside of Henry and make him falter in his conviction.

Not exactly though, because Henry has one more trick up his sleeve: Diana comes into play. Why did Crane move on so fast after Abbie’s death? How will Crane be able to explain Molly’s death to her own mother?

Henry leaves him with one answer to these questions— a noose hanging from the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Jenny tries to play the “innocent” girl by sneaking onto government property claiming that she got “lost with her boyfriend on the trails,” but when a weapon falls out her bag, the military detain her. Luckily for Jenny, Jake and Alex call Diana to bail her out. The two go on the hunt for Crane while Diana still denying her daughters’ fate as the next witness. It’s frustrating that Diana still can’t see the bigger picture.While it’s understandable that she does not want to put her daughter in harm’s way, her inability to even accept that her daughter is the next witness is, well, just frustrating.

Once they find the spider web covered cave, they find Crane who is trapped in a cocoon that he cannot be freed from. They also find a creepy spider-person, who Diana shoots at, but Crane takes the bullet instead in his dream-state because the two are psychically linked. They abandon Crane and hit the books to learn about Grace Dixon, a descendant of Abbie and Jenny, who knew about the creature of despair, who puts a man’s soul on trial. It’s not just Crane who is on the line though, all of the men at the army base will be driven to suicide once Crane dies.

They find out about the fire of joy, an actual flame that is able to extinguish the creature. Jake and Alex go on the hunt for one of the compounds to make the fire located in the Smithsonian archives where Jake makes a confession to Alex—that he is tired of spending his life reading about cool things instead of doing cool things. This becomes all too real though when Dreyfuss’ henchman appears, kills the guard and steals an artifact. It turns out Jake isn’t prepared for everything that comes their way after all.

Jake informs Jenny that he recognized Dreyfuss’ henchman and that he must be connected to the supernatural occurrences in D.C., while they are heading to the cave to save Crane. Alex and Jake break Crane out with green-fire blasters while Diana and Jenny kill the creature. Crane is still trapped in his own subconscious and, poor Crane, who’s about to kill himself, hears Molly’s voice through the light, and Diana’s cellphone, telling him to never give up hope. And he doesn’t, waking up and letting Diana know that they have to talk about Molly. Diana agrees and is on the path of acceptance.

Something is still wrong though, the jar of spider webbing is still alive, with a face staring back at us.

Sleepy Head Highlight: Jake thinking that Crane may just gotten lost in the mall, again, even though his apartment is covered in supernatural spider webs.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

Sleepy Hollow airs Fridays at 9/8c on FOX.

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Amanda is a student and writer living on Long Island who is passionate about good storytelling, collecting books, watching TV and her two cats. Some of her favorite TV shows are Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, House of Cards, Vikings and The Vampire Diaries. Her dream is to be a best-selling fiction author someday, but in the meantime she is exploring her love for writing articles and wants to pursue a career in magazine writing. She is currently writing for her school's alumni magazine and recently had her first short story "Skeletons" published by a literary magazine.